


The Hound

by FireEye



Category: Ultima
Genre: AU: Fairy Tale/Myth, Gen, trope bingo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-01
Updated: 2014-06-01
Packaged: 2018-01-27 17:08:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1718174
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FireEye/pseuds/FireEye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Avatar goes for a leisurely stroll in the forest, which is, quite naturally, anything but leisurely.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Hound

The overgrown track meandered through rolling foothills that arched into the Serpent’s Spine. At this distance, the mountains were obscured through the thick trees that shadowed the path and scattered the waning western light. Tossing a raw bough from hand to hand as she walked, the young woman followed its lead at a leisurely pace.

“Despite my best efforts,” the Æther Gem purred from above her shoulder, “I fail to comprehend the meaning of this utterly pointless excursion.”

“What’s not to comprehend?” Alexis asked, twirling the walking stick in hand. “The world is beautiful.”

“And quite deadly to thy kind.”

“That’s a wee bit melodramatic, don’t you think?”

“Hardly.” Had Arcadion a throat, the sound might have been a scoff. “Surely thou hast a reckoning of the beasts that wander these lands. The least of my kin. The castoffs of thine.”

“I’m a big girl, Arcadion.” There was a hint of drawl in her voice as she added, “With a big bad dæmon to back me up.”

“Thou’rt hopeless.”

Alexis’ smile broadened, but her lip twitched at the corner. Not for the first time in the late afternoon, there was a distant twinge of magic, as though someone had plucked at the strings of reality.

One of the tradeoffs of being bound to Arcadion, perchance. Or a side effect of having touched the flood of æther. Or, perhaps most simply, a natural sensitivity, burgeoning with use.

Her carefree gait slowed to a creep, until she came to stand under a birch that reached high into the tangle of boughs above. Reaching out to run her fingers along the scarred silver bark, the Avatar felt for the vibration in the æther. It was subtle, an intangible impression shadowing her path. It stopped, the flow of energy rippling around it, as well as straight through it.

There and not.

“Do thou not look behind thee.”

Already half-turned, Alexis froze. Drawing up to height, she instead tossed her stick between her hands.

“What is it that I’m not looking at?”

In the still silence, she might have sworn that she could feel the trapped dæmon breathing. Nothing else moved, not a sound, not even a whispered breeze through the canopy.

“A black hound.”

Her eyes darted towards the hilt of the sword strapped to her back, she could see from the corner of her eye. Several yards yet, the æther rippled as the shadow moved towards her.

“A what?”

“A fey beast, that thou wouldst best not cross paths with.”

“You know, some people say the same of-...”

“It is a harbinger of madness and death.”

Biting the inside of her cheek, Alexis dipped her head in a slow nod. “In other words, run.”

“That would be-”

Whatever words he may have spoken were lost as the woman launched forward, crashing through the underbrush; the sudden, low rumbling growl on the path behind them grew to an piercing, anguished howl. For an instant, the Avatar froze, beginning to turn back only to be spurred onward by a glimpse of the flickering abomination shadowing her footsteps.

The world narrowed and blurred to the singular ribbon of the path itself, as Alexis focused entirely on outrunning the beast at her heels. The vamp of her boot caught against a taught cord. Flung forward, she missed the ground, slamming against a tree trunk with enough momentum to force the breath from her lungs and set her choking on air.

“Well now,” crowed a triumphant voice, “What’ve we caught ourselves, lads?”

Dangling in the snare with her cloak billowing below her head, she twisted and swayed until she could braced her free foot against the trunk of the tree to steady herself. Focusing on steadying her breathing, she evaluated this new development.

There was another man standing behind the man who had spoken, taller, broader, and one other man and a woman to one side - the last farthest, armed with a crossbow leveled in her direction.

There was no sign of the black hound. Yet, none of them looked apt enough to have created such an illusion. Apart from the crossbow, she counted swords and a lone mace between the four of them, but not one mage.

The front man glanced back at the man behind him, shoring up his uncertainty, then nodded to Alexis.

“Le’ go of the book,” he said.

Alexis blinked, then realized her hand was flat against her spellbook, pressing it to her side. With a shrug, she pulled her hand away to let it fall, and it dangled harmlessly from its tether. She held her hands out, palms upwards to the sky, in a gesture of acquiescence.

Luckily for them both, the man didn’t touch the book. Instead, he unbuckled her knife belt; it fell to the forest floor in a muffled clatter, joined shortly by her arming sword. He loosened the buckle that held the Shade Blade’s scabbard, but the weapon itself remained defiantly adhered to her back.

“What’s with the sword?”

“It’s cursed.” Alexis wriggled as the man bent to reached for the hilt pressed against her shoulder. “Oh, I wouldn’t touch it if I were you.” She explained as he jerked his hand back, startled, “It likes to suck the souls out of the unwary and... well... eat them.”

“It,” Arcadion bubbled with disapproval.

“Shut up,” Alexis murmured back.

“ _Master_ ,” came the acerbic acknowledgement, and she rolled her eyes.

Interlacing her fingers, Alexis folded her hands behind her head as the front man began rifling through the pouches at her belt. “Help yourself.”

He pulled one free, lured by the clink of metal within. His seemingly natural scowl deepened; he dropped the bag, and an assortment of keys spilled across the ground. He hesitated over the consistency of her reagents pouch, but pulled it free; his nose wrinkled at the mixed aroma of herbs and powders, but the sight of gold and silver mingled with the bottles and packets prompted a lopsided smile.

With a triumphant bark, he tossed it back to the man behind before turning his attention back to her. Pulling her arm free to no resistance, the man examined her hand, feeling under the short fingers of her gloves, then her wrist under her sleeve, and repeated the gesture with her other hand.

There was a hungry glint in his eye as he caught sight of the golden chain tangled under her collar of her cloak. With a tug of the chain, the pendant tumbled free of her vest, suspended below her eyebrows.

“No.” Alexis caught his wrist in a vice grip, narrowing her eyes. “ _That_ , I keep.”

“Who follows the Virtues in this day and age?” the man standing off to the side asked. Alexis glanced in his direction; he sounded younger than he at a glance had looked.

“You’re free to follow whatever you like,” Alexis told him. “I find myself with little choice in the matter.”

Hand still clasped tight around the ankh, the man tried to pull it free. The Avatar tightened her grip and twisted, snapping bone.

The man screamed and stumbled back. At once, his companions shifted about – the largest man stepped forward towards Alexis, while the youth rushed toward his injured friend, and woman with the crossbow moved in slow behind him.

A deep growl emanated from the surrounding trees, from the air itself.

“Fuck,” Alexis breathed. Over her shoulder, Arcadion _hrrm_ ed.

The shadows coalesced into shape, lunging for the wounded man. The younger man got trapped between them, cry of pain cut short as the beast’s jaw clamped down on his throat. With the bandits distracted, Alexis clawed her way to the hunting dagger sheathed in her boot to cut herself free.

Aiming carefully, the woman let her bolt fly. The bolt went _through_ the beast, sinking deep into man it was mauling. With a choked gasp, she fled, leaving the youth to his fate and soon followed by her two remaining cohorts. The hound shook the man it had viciously, and let the rest run.

Crouched not two meters away, Alexis reached for the hilt of the Black Sword.

“Can you kill it?”

“It is a _wraith_ , Master.”

“So... no.”

“It is _already_ dead.”

Alexis’ grip on the sword loosened, even as the hound showed no further signs of attacking. Instead, the shadow of a beast now stared at her, its grey eyes shining with an uncanny light all their own. Slowly, she reached towards it, holding out her hand. The hound hesitated, tail twitching back and forth, before dropping its prey and floundering forward towards her.

Its fur was stiff, yet nigh intangible. Its skin was thin and brittle as old parchment, and the fire that was its blood and body seared through the palms of Alexis’ gloves from the cracks therein. There was a soul trapped there, old and weary and worn so far beyond the point of breaking; hound rest its head in her lap, smearing blood upon her knee, and she stroked its fur, which smudged inky black along her bare fingers.

There was something ancient in the magic that held it together, something _familiar_. The notes of a melody long forgotten, or only dreamed of. The smell of herbs, while clinging to mother’s dress.

“Did Mondain create this?”

“I...” belatedly, Arcadion realized that Alexis was entranced beyond his answering, “would not know.”

Delicately, the Avatar sought the threads of enchantment that held the beast together. She untied the knots, one by one, until, with a final, faint whine, the spirit fled.

Brushing the soot off her leggings, Alexis glanced about the remaining mess. After securing Arcadion’s scabbard strap across her chest, she collected her blades and retrieved the keys one by one from the dirt where they had scattered. After a brief attempt, her makeshift walking stick was given up for lost. Finally, she found her reagents pouch, crowns and all, having been abandoned for the trouble.

Standing over the corpse of the young man, she dug through the last, and pulled out select reagents before bending forward to jerk the bolt from his chest.

“Looks like it’s your lucky day, kid.”

Taking a deep breath, the Avatar crushed the components in hand, focusing the energy of creation. Rent flesh and sinew knit together, first scarring over then smoothing to soft unblemished skin. The pool of mana built to an overflowing crescendo, and Alexis hissed, pouring it loose into a single focal point.

“ _In Mani Corp_.”

The soft, satisfying gasp of life reached her ears, and when Alexis opened her eyes, she found the now-living young man staring up at her with a wide-eyed lack of comprehension. Biting back a grin, she pointed down the path.

“Your friends went that way,” she told him, “I suggest you go find them.”

The youth stared at her a mere moment longer, before scrambling to his feet and following her direction.

Sinking to her knees in the middle of the path, Alexis leaned back on her hands. The drain of Resurrection was not to be underestimated.

“I misspoke,” Arcadion stated.

“Oh yeah?” Alexis asked, “How’s that?”

“Thou’rt not hopeless,” the dæmon acknowledged.

“Aww, Arcadion I think that’s the sweetest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

“Thou’rt _utterly_ hopeless.”

“...and _fuck you_ , too.”

**Author's Note:**

> When I was a kid, I heard the tale of the Black Hound as a creature that keeps you safe when you're traveling alone at night. Apparently it's a hell of a lot dangerous everywhere else (And I don't know where my version came from, seeing as how I live nowhere near the place where the Black Hound IS considered a guardian spirit.)
> 
> So I mashed them together.
> 
> Yey! :)


End file.
